TAKEN to the back room in one of Newcastle’s most famous pubs, Hazel Rayson thought she had a job for a fortnight.

But 50 years on from becoming one of the “Balmbras Girls”, the Blaydon grandmother-of-three is celebrating a half century in the dancing spotlight.

As an 18-year-old solicitors’ secretary, Hazel was one of the six cancan performers hired for the reopening of the Cloth Market institution to coincide with the centenary of the Blaydon Races.

“I ended up there in 1962 just through someone I knew. It wasn’t a case that I auditioned, someone was looking for girls to dance, so that’s how I got it.

“I’d danced since the age of five and had a day job as a secretary in a solicitors’ firm on Grey Street.

“At that time I was only earning maybe £6 or £7 a week and at Balmbras, which was owned by Hammond United Breweries, they were offering 12 guineas.

“That’s like someone now on £100 a week being offered £200 a week.

“I went for two weeks and ended up staying for three and a half years.

“We were dancing two shows a night, six nights a week and I don’t think anyone knew the concept of holidays.

“In the beginning all of us had our normal jobs as well but gave them up after about three months of being there.”

As the girls’ routines quickly became a popular part of the review, the girls found themselves being asked to do more and more.

“We started out doing the cancan and one show, then they had us open the show, then come on in the middle too.

“We had to start putting in kicking routines and the Charleston – music hall, what we called ‘big hat’, dances.

“And we had to come up with our own choreography and costumes.

“If girls went for a dancing job nowadays and they were told to do it all themselves they’d have a fit – plus we never had a contract.

“But it was an enjoyable experience.

“Singers and all other acts were coming in all the time so it was always different and I think I ended up with an entire wall covered in photos of different people.”

Alongside her dancing duties, Hazel, now 68, found time to found her own dance school, which from church hall classes has grown to become the Hazel Rayson Theatre Dance Studio in Ryton – teaching scores of Tyneside youngsters along the way and even helping them tread the boards at the Royal Albert Hall and Disneyland Paris.

“My dancing teacher gave up her school and moved away and that is how this school kind of happened,” said Hazel, who married husband Ian in 1965 and has two daughters Michelle and Helen, who is also involved in the family business.

Over the years Hazel also danced in pantomimes and worked with the Swalwell Operatic Society, but all along she has continued an association with the Blaydon Races, which this year celebrate their 150th anniversary.

“A lot of people don’t remember what that opening day in 1962 was like,” said Hazel.

“We started dancing in the morning for dignitaries, then we were dancing as the parade left – but by the time the front of it had reached Blaydon, I think the back of it still hadn’t left Newcastle.

“Then all the way from Newcastle to Blaydon we had to flail our skirts round on the back of a cart.

“When we reached Blaydon it was all knocked down and was all flat, so we danced there, then we went back to perform at Balmbras.

“We were only meant to do one but I’m sure we did at least three shows that night as people were still queuing outside to get in.

“Afterwards they took us to Tynemouth where there was a big party in the hotel on the front.

“I couldn’t do it now – not dance from early until 4am in the morning.

“But for 25 years I’ve been involved in the Blaydon Races celebrations, with my girls dancing.

“Originally the organisers wanted girls with costumes at the finish line so it would look more attractive for the runners coming in.

“Then one year something happened and they ended up dancing in Blaydon on the car park, and eventually they said to do it over the road from Balmbras, outside the nightclub.”

While Hazel said she has not seen any of the other “Balmbras Girls” for a long time, she is hoping that former pupils will turn out for a reunion on July 7 at the Lancastrian Suite in Dunston.

“I hope I’ll see people from all my 50 years,” she said.

Balmbras itself is also set to reopen for one night only on June 9 this year, with current owners DAV developments agreeing to let the Blaydon Races 150 committee host an evening of Geordie comedy.

But organisers say for the event to go ahead they need local businesses to sponsor it.

For more information about all the events planned and to find out about sponsorship, visit blaydonraces150.co.uk